


The love we deserve

by theladyofcamelias



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Cracksip treated seriously, F/M, Light Swearing, Soulmate AU, very large age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 10:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyofcamelias/pseuds/theladyofcamelias
Summary: The name on your wrist means nothing, they have all been taught since infancy, and yet...





	The love we deserve

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was created for the asoiafrarepair prompt event and was inspired by the following prompt: Soulmate AU where marks appear on the soulmates’ wrists when the younger one is born. Sansa is born with Doran’s name on her wrist and in Dorne, Sansa’s name appears on his.

He’s thirty when he feels his wrist ache. It itches, becomes red and swollen, pains him like a rotten tooth. He ignores it at first. I slept on it wrong, he would tell himself. I must have trained too hard today, I never should have let Oberyn persuade me to spar with him yesterday. It is the heat, the dryness, it’s making my bones ache. I’m becoming old.

It is only when his wrist explodes in pain one day, as he’s having breakfast with his family that they all notice. He can barely hold his fork and he keeps rubbing his wrist every two seconds.

“Is everything alright?” Asks Oberyn, grinning cheekily.

He knows, or at least he suspects. But dammit, Doran is going to keep ignoring this until his damn wrist falls off.  
“Everything is fine.” He grounds his teeth together and stuffs whatever is in his spoon into his mouth.  
“Father,” Arianne asks, “you don’t seem well.”  
He smiles tiredly at her.  
“I’m well enough sweetheart.”

“I miss mother.”  
The entire table quiets down to look at four year old Trystane Martell’s outburst. Doran’s breath catches in his throat. He can’t breath, he can’t breath, he can’t breath.  
“Me too.” He answers finally, his voice as dry as the desert.  
“When is she coming back?” He persisted. “She promised me we’d go to the beach and pick seashells together before she left.”  
Doran thanks all seven gods right then and there that Oberyn brought Ellaria with him.  
“We don’t know that. But we don’t need her, do we? We can go pick seashells, just you and I. How would you like that?”  
Trystane instantly perks up.  
“Can Elia come too?”  
She chuckles.  
“If you want her too.”  
His mind now occupied, Trystane switches his four year old attention span to his newly planned beach adventure while Doran’s mind spirals with thoughts of Mellario, and Norvos, and how beautiful she’d looked that first night, and in her wedding dress, and...

The ache in his heart almost makes him forget the one in his wrist, but he raises his wrist too quickly and lets out a pained gasp as more pain shoots up his arm. Everyone stops again to look at him.  
“My wrist hurts.” He finally says. “I must have slept on it wrong.”  
Arianne nods silently, pleased with his explanation, but Oberyn and Ellaria look at him and they know and _fuck them_.

“I miss Quentyn,” says Arianne.  
Doran groans.  
“Quentyn is doing his duty, fostering with the Yronwoods. I’m sure he would love receiving a letter from you.”  
Arianne nods silently and resumes her meal. Trystane all but licks his plate clean before jumping on Ellaria and saying that he wants to go to the beach _now, right now_.

As Ellaria carries him away, laughing, Arianne excuses herself from the table. She takes a few steps towards the door before stopping and turning around.  
“Mother’s never coming back is she.”  
Doran stills in his chair. He didn’t know what to say. How do you explain to a fourteen year old girl that her mother decided to leave because she was unhappy without making her feel guilty?  
He looks at Arianne closer and notices that her chin is trembling and her eyes are stinging with tears.  
“I don’t know.” He answers finally, because it is the truth. Mellario has only been gone for a few months. She may come back. She may decide to come visit again for her children’s sake. She might insist on a visit from them to Norvos.  
“I’m not stupid.” She bites.  
“I know.”  
His calm irritates her.  
“I’m going to go write a letter to Quentyn.”  
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”  
She made her way out of the room, leaving him alone with Oberyn.

“You need to speak with her.” Oberyn says, “She’s not a child anymore Doran.”  
Doran sighs, leans back in his seat and fiddles with his wrist once more. The action catches his brother’s eye.  
“So...” he leaned closer to his brother, as though to tell him a secret. “When were you going to tell me?”  
“Tell you what.” Doran replies shortly.  
Oberyn glances at his wrist meaningfully.  
“Shouldn’t we be offering you congratulations?”  
“Congratulations on what. I’m a thirty year old man who got abandoned by his wife, and whose daughter dislikes.”  
“Arianne doesn’t dislike you,” says Oberyn, “And it’s not your fault Mellario left.”  
Doran doesn’t reply to that. He looks more vulnerable than Oberyn has ever seen.  
“It...it can’t be what you’re thinking about. It can’t be.”  
“It would hardly be the biggest age difference in the history of Westeros.”  
“A child, Oberyn. A new born infant. I won’t reduce myself to the indignity of being a child-fucker.”  
“Of course you won’t,” he waves his hand on the air, as though that was never the question, “but when she, or he, is fifteen, sixteen...”  
“I’ll be forty-five, forty-six.”  
“Positively ancient.” He rolls his eyes. “You’ll probably have crumbled to dust by then.”  
“This isn’t a joke Oberyn.” He cradles his wrist in his other hand. “I don’t have time for this.”  
“At least see a maester. If it’s not a soulmate mark then you’re probably coming down with some horrible disease.” He teases.

Doran doesn’t deign his brother with an answer, but he does go and see Maester Caleotte that same day. The Maester pokes and prods at his wrist for a good ten minutes before giving his verdict.  
“Could it be nothing else?” Doran asked, desperate.  
“Not that I know of.” The Maester answered, embarrassed.  
Doran thanked the Maester before retreating to the safety of his solar. There he collapsed on his desk, clutching his quill so hard it broke in his hand.

Why? Would the gods do this to him now? He always thought he was one of those people who didn’t have a mark. Oberyn was lucky enough to be born with Ellaria’s name on his wrist. Arianne was born with Daemon Sand’s name on hers, And Trystane had suffered a minor wrist ache a year ago before the name Edric Dayne appeared on his. The only one who didn’t have a mark yet was Quentyn, the child who most resembled him.

_Maybe this is a good thing. She will be too young for me to wed, but she could foster at Sunspear, fill the Watergardens with laughter, befriend my children, ease my loneliness. Perhaps I could even marry her to Trystane, or Quentyn, if her parents consent._

He allowed himself to fantasize about this for three whole minutes before he abruptly reminded himself that no parent in their right mind would consent to foster their daughter with her soulmate, especially when he was an older man who could take advantage of the situation, and a dornish one at that. Unless his soulmate’s parents were dornish bannermen who knew better than the rumors spread about dornish people throughout the seven kingdoms, or particularly power hungry nobles who sought to expand their political power by pawning off their daughter to him, the chances of him ever meeting his soulmate were slim to none.

As the days passed, his wrist became more flaky and tender. He rubbed his wrist, trying to ease the pain, before seeing the beginning of a name forming under the peeling skin. The revealing of one’s soulmate’s name was something sacred and precious. Most people did it in the Sept, surrounded by their families. But Doran couldn’t bear to be with them right now.

He started rubbing his wrist angrily, getting rid of the old skin. And there it was, inked by the gods themselves, on his wrist, a name, a curse.

_Sansa Stark_

* * *

Sansa was lucky. She knew she was. Her parents loved each other, even though they were not soulmates, she had several siblings who dotted on her, and she was going to be a great lady someday, just as good as her mother.

But still, she yearned for more. She wanted to be queen and have a dozen children with a golden prince, just like in a song. She was going to journey south, where everything was prettier and meet knights, true ones, who would fight for her favor, and she’d only give it to the most handsome one.

She scarcely thought of her mark. The name had been written on Sansa’s wrist since the moment she’d been born. And it’s a good thing Septa Mordayne insisted on the fact that soulmarks meant nothing and that her duty was to her parents first and not to some man half a world away because she _definitely_ does not want to journey to Dorne to marry a man older than father.

They’ve all been unlucky in their soulmates, Robb’s soulmate is _Theon_ of all people, and Arya’s is some bastard boy from the Crownlands named Gendry Waters. Bran doesn’t have one, and only Rickon’s soulmate, Shireen Baratheon, is an appropriate match for him. They’d thus been taught, all of them, not to put too much stock in names scribbled on their wrists but to focus instead on alliances and politics and the good of their house when thinking about prospective matches.

The only sign Sansa received that her soulmate existed, was the crates of lemons that were regularly shipped from Dorne. She doesn’t know how Prince Doran ever knew that she loved lemon cakes so much, but the sheer amount of lemons he sends every year is enough for her to be able to have a lemon cake every day if her father would ever allow such extravagance. There is also a gift, sent for her nameday. Sometimes it is a doll, othertimes a book of songs, one time he sends her bolts of the most beautiful fabric Sansa has ever seen which they have fashions into what is now her favorite dress. Rolls of Myrish lace, and a high harp, and jewels, make their way to Winterfell for her nameday and Sansa awaits each gift with more excitement. Robb half-heartedly complains that Theon never sent him such pretty things and Theon thumps him in response.

But Prince Doran never writes, and so she feels no need to write either. She has nothing of equal value to give him, and if her father sends Prince Doran gifts for his nameday in her name, she had no hand in it. She does give him a carefully embroidered piece of cloth of their two house sigils intertwined, the proud wolf of House Stark and the sun and spear of House Martell, which she leaves with the Dornishman who’d arrived to Winterfell to deliver her gift. She feels silly afterwards, like a stupid, stupid girl and never does it again.

Nobody tells her anything about them. In fact, Sansa suspects that everybody has been told to deliberately hide information about him from her, but she soon learns that he’s married, although his wife left him, and that he has three children, all of whom are older than her. Mellario, she learns one day after spying on the servants in a move Septa Mordayne would definitely not have approved of, is his wife’s name. She left him to go back to Norvos.

Sansa tries to imagine what would happen if her mother decided to return to Riverrun and never see any of them again. They would be devastated, all of them. Sansa would never be able to survive without her mother, she is sure of it, and her father would be devastated. Sometimes, Sansa wishes Mellario were in front of her so she could lecture her about _Family, Duty, Honor_ and how she didn’t have the right to hurt her soulmate this way.

“Will I ever marry Prince Doran?” She’d asked her father when she was eight.  
He put down his quill and turned around to focus on her.  
“Do you want to?” He asked, as though Sansa’s wish mattered, as though he would send her to Dorne if she asked, and until the day she died, Sansa would never forget this moment.  
She shook her head no.  
“Arya says since I was bad you were going to send me away to Dorne to be married to get rid off me. I didn’t mean to be mean to Arya I swear, but it was her fault! She started it! And...”  
Whatever Sansa was going to say next was lost as her father engulfed her in his arms.  
“You’ll never have to marry him, you don’t even have to meet with him if you don’t want to. Do you hear me Sansa?”  
Sansa nodded and threw her arms around her father’s neck, relieved.

A few years later, the king came to Winterfell, and what use did she have of dornish princes when she could have a king. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this is probably the weirdest pairing I’ve heard off, but I read the prompt and my brain did the thing and in conclusion, here we are! Tell me what you think about this pairing, it’s definitely one of the weirder ones. Would you guys like me to continue writing this fic with more Doran/Sansa? Or would you prefer if I delved into Robb/Theon, Arya/Gendry and Rickon/Shireen? Or both? Or neither? Either way, let me know in the comments. Also: Who do you think is Ned’s soulmate and who do you think is Cat’s? Thanks so much for reading!


End file.
